Comment by amelius
19 hours ago
I'm not choosing sides here but if telecom equipment from e.g. HuaWei is not allowed on US/EU markets because of national security concerns, then should we allow cars?
19 hours ago
I'm not choosing sides here but if telecom equipment from e.g. HuaWei is not allowed on US/EU markets because of national security concerns, then should we allow cars?
Why not? We allow pretty much everything else. Appliances, consumer electronics, car parts, batteries, etc.
The one and only reason to not allow Chinese cars is to try and protect domestic auto industry, but considering how expensive and mismanaged domestic auto production is I don't see that as a good excuse. They won't die because they can't possibly compete, they will die for refusing to compete because they want higher profit margins now rather than bulk sales and good public perception 10 years down the line. They would rather fuck their future and bet on a bail-out than dare try making bulk cheap cars again with a bit lower margin.
Hell GM paid Toyota to come teach them how to make cars cheaper and better and build matrix platform cars in their factory. And what did they do when that happened and cars started rolling off the line? They complained that Toyota didn't produce them them in the same manner they would have, and then closed the plant down. Meanwhile Matrix platform cars like the Vibe are highly sought after on the used car market because they were known for reliability and ease of maintenance.
If we were actually worried about security, we would be doing FAR more than merely disallowing HuaWei products. Its like living next to an active volcano in a forest fire prone areas inside a log cabin and then screaming about how dangerous it would be to allow matches be sold in stores due to arsonists.
You don't allow chinese cars because those assembly lines can be converted to make tanks or other war vehicles if needed. Substitute industry and product as needed
I don't believe for a second that modern automotice production can easily be changed into manufacturing anything besides consumer grade vehicles. Auto plants aren't full of generalized lathes and mills anymore and a large part of their supply chain is based in smaller factories making the the more complicated parts. It takes them up to two years just to switch from one consumer vehicle to another, not to mention a completely new vehicle unlike anything that has been built in those plants for over 80 years if ever.
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This just doesnt work. The days when the same line producing cars can be turned into production of tanks has long been gone.
Basically the same manufacruting line cant be even used to build cars on different platform than intended.
Example: a lot of car manufacturers have left Russia in 2022 and most of capacity used for cars is just stay rotting. Even used facilities are only utilized for semi-knocked down assembly.
We allow everything else from iPhone to your microwave. National security seems awfully like a veil for regulatory capture
Because that is a short sighted and ineffective way to deal with the problem.
This is a national security concern but in a different way. It's about the de-industrialization of America. Palmer Lucky talks about this and how China's goal is to make sure America can't build anything. Once that happens we can never win a war against them.
If that's really the goal, would it make sense for the government to subsidize cars with military money? Because otherwise, car buyers are basically subsidizing national defense by buying overpriced cars.
The combination of minimum wage and immigration restrictions is the main driver of that.
If you could have Chinese workers on Chinese wages in American factories none of this would have happened. But that's not allowed.
To build things you also need a lot of people with education, know how and experience. You cant just bring low-wage workforce and expect to compete with China.
Let alone that to provide same quality of living to average chinese worker as they have in China their salary in US will have to grow 5-6 times.
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We shouldn’t.
Not just because of the assumed security issues (good point though).
But even w/o these,
- I rather have some European or American conglomerate gathering unnecessary data about me driving, than just hand it over to the Chinese state
- Buying Chinese means destroying our own base, as this market has been actively stealing IP for decades (BYD or Xiamoi just being copycats of Porsche); good luck winning piracy cases in Chinese courts
- unfair financial restrictions for redeeming returns on foreign investments fueled much of China‘s growth - and still persist
- western/asian manufacturers are de-facto not competing with mere manufacturers but the Chinese state itself since (almost?) all Chinese manufacturers are State-Owned-Companies
Now that is not to say that China‘s rise is not commendable and deserved, it is indeed. I‘m rather arguing for playing the same game as they are.
> I rather have some European or American conglomerate gathering unnecessary data about me driving, than just hand it over to the Chinese state.
Why? Conglomerates in my own country are in a much better position to use any data they have about me in a way that harms me than China is.
The part I don't get is, why shouldn't Western companies be able to out-compete the Chinese state at mass-producing cars?
My whole life, I only heard about how much better private companies are than governments at making products. How could we be suddenly behind?
OK, Xiaomi and BYD are state-backed private companies. But what advantage does the state-backing get them, exactly? How is it better than the familiar state-backed advantages western companies have (like regulatory capture, tax breaks, tariffs, or TBTF bailouts)?
The Chinese government can subsidize them. But that's just moving zero-sum money around; it might give them a boost in cars, but it must come at a cost to semiconductors, robotics, solar energy, raw materials, defense, or other things like that.... in theory at least? So why does it feel like they're somehow subsidizing every sector at the same time?
I thought private business competing in a free market would always out do a centrally planned economy with state owned enterprises.
We've been told that in the West since Reagan, when we decided to forget all the advantages of a Keynesian economy.
So the actual concept of having an industrial strategy was and is considered against all economic orthodoxy in the West.
BYD is not a "copy" of Porsche, they hired European designers, Xioamoi made mobile phones before they started making cars.
The problem of China appropriating intellectual property has been known for decades, but access to the market was considered more important. The governments and industries could have decided that the market was less important and stopped transferring technology, but they didn't.
Chinese IP has been developing on its own at an accelerated pace now.
Most of the technology in Western vehicles is using chips built in Chinese or Taiwanese fabs and if China wanted to subvert the vehicle supply chains in EU or US, I'm sure they could.